2.27.2007
MASH
It may be time for a new generation to discover Robert Altman's MASH, the 1970 movie about the Korean War that was really about the Vietnam War. But it's really about the absurdity of war in general and the joys of tweaking the nose of authority. Like most people my age (pushing 30 in 2006), I'm most familiar with the long-running television series starring Alan Alda, whose Hawkeye was always a bit smug and Groucho Marx-y for my taste. So, this turn with Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould as Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre.
The movie starts with Pierce and another newly drafted doctor, Duke Forrest, played by Tom Skerritt, starting their tour of duty at a field hospital during the Korean War. During the course of the movie, they encounter like-minded draftees (nearly all the other nurses and doctors) and regimented military types, like head nurse Maj. O'Houlihan, played by Sally Kellerman, and the hypocritical Maj. Frank Burns, played by Robert Duvall, and patch people blown up by grenades and torn apart by bullets in extremely gory hospital scenes. (Several real Korean War doctors who are featured in a documentary included in the DVD said the scenes weren't as bloody as it was in real life.)
The movie is not perfect. There really isn't a dramatic story arc and the story is told in a series of sketches. It's more like an essay about about war. Unfortunately, that causes the movie to drag a little bit in the middle, to the point where I was checking the clock. Then the movie gets sidelined by what seems to be a pointless football game that comes out of nowhere. I read someone justify the game by saying that it showed that the team of doctors could come together for a common cause (even if it involves cheating). But we already see them do that in almost every operating room scene, where McIntyre, Pierce, O'Houlihan and Lt. Col. Henry Blake end the snarking and focus on wounded.
Altman's style juxtaposes the toilet humor in the camp with the gruesome reality of people's bodies getting chewed up by war. For the most part, it works. The operating room scenes seem to get more and more graphic as the movie continues and the audience begins to see what's driving the intense anger behind Pierce and McIntyre's bad attitudes. Whatever their political beliefs (and reportedly, the writer of the novel on which MASH is based was politically conservative), they (and actually, most of the rest of the camp) are rebelling at the absurdity and the outcome of war. But their rebellion never distracts them from the job at hand. It's an interesting take on the idea of hating the war, but supporting the troops.
Date: 10/7/06, DVD
(0) comments for "MASH"
The movie starts with Pierce and another newly drafted doctor, Duke Forrest, played by Tom Skerritt, starting their tour of duty at a field hospital during the Korean War. During the course of the movie, they encounter like-minded draftees (nearly all the other nurses and doctors) and regimented military types, like head nurse Maj. O'Houlihan, played by Sally Kellerman, and the hypocritical Maj. Frank Burns, played by Robert Duvall, and patch people blown up by grenades and torn apart by bullets in extremely gory hospital scenes. (Several real Korean War doctors who are featured in a documentary included in the DVD said the scenes weren't as bloody as it was in real life.)
The movie is not perfect. There really isn't a dramatic story arc and the story is told in a series of sketches. It's more like an essay about about war. Unfortunately, that causes the movie to drag a little bit in the middle, to the point where I was checking the clock. Then the movie gets sidelined by what seems to be a pointless football game that comes out of nowhere. I read someone justify the game by saying that it showed that the team of doctors could come together for a common cause (even if it involves cheating). But we already see them do that in almost every operating room scene, where McIntyre, Pierce, O'Houlihan and Lt. Col. Henry Blake end the snarking and focus on wounded.
Altman's style juxtaposes the toilet humor in the camp with the gruesome reality of people's bodies getting chewed up by war. For the most part, it works. The operating room scenes seem to get more and more graphic as the movie continues and the audience begins to see what's driving the intense anger behind Pierce and McIntyre's bad attitudes. Whatever their political beliefs (and reportedly, the writer of the novel on which MASH is based was politically conservative), they (and actually, most of the rest of the camp) are rebelling at the absurdity and the outcome of war. But their rebellion never distracts them from the job at hand. It's an interesting take on the idea of hating the war, but supporting the troops.
Date: 10/7/06, DVD
Labels: M
2.26.2007
a mighty wind
Jim bought "This is Spinal Tap" on DVD, and suddenly, I got a hankering to see "A Mighty Wind," Christopher Guest's spoof of folk musicians. I didn't even consider seeing this movie when it came out, so that was unusual for me. Even more unusual, I actually did something about it and hied myself to Hollywood Video to rent a copy.
"A Mighty Wind" surprised me by having a real plot with something at stake, and an emotional center provided by actors Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, who play fictional folk duo "Mitch and Mickie." The duo were married in the 1960s, released a bunch of sweet folkie love songs, and then bitterly divorced by the 1970s. He goes mad and becomes a fried up ex-hippie; she marries a catheter salesman. The plot of the movie hinges around whether Mitch can get himself together in time to play live for a public television broadcast of reunited folk musicians.
Mitch and Mickie's scenes are funny but sweet as they get to know each other once again, but the film cuts through the sweetness with the appearances by a strange cult-like nine-piece singing group "The New Mainstreet Singers," in which the members we are introduced to all have a creepy and surreal back stories, and The Folksmen, a pretty straight-forward and typical folk-group that had hits with novelty songs featurings jokes and sing-a-longs. The Folksmen, played by the three main members of Spinal Tap, have some great lines, but their function in the movie seems to be the providers of the only coherent history and context of the surreal folk-world that exists in this movie.
An amazing amount of prepraration that went into this project -- the movie has "cover art" from all three bands and some of the actors had to learn how to play and sing well enough to get onstage. The DVD also has a public-television-like concert of the performances of the three groups --- with all the actors singing and playing live like real rock stars. The songs are appropriately silly send-ups of different aspects of folk music (which is something I actually don't care for).
I've never seen "Spinal Tap" from beginning to end, but what I've seen, while funny, seems often like improv actors trying to get their lines in. (I might change my mind if I ever see the whole thing straight through.) In "A MIghty Wind," the lines were also improvised, but the Mitch and Mickie plot turns out to be so well formed with a satisfying conclusion that is unexpected but perfect.
Date: 2/25/07, DVD
(0) comments for "a mighty wind"
"A Mighty Wind" surprised me by having a real plot with something at stake, and an emotional center provided by actors Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, who play fictional folk duo "Mitch and Mickie." The duo were married in the 1960s, released a bunch of sweet folkie love songs, and then bitterly divorced by the 1970s. He goes mad and becomes a fried up ex-hippie; she marries a catheter salesman. The plot of the movie hinges around whether Mitch can get himself together in time to play live for a public television broadcast of reunited folk musicians.
Mitch and Mickie's scenes are funny but sweet as they get to know each other once again, but the film cuts through the sweetness with the appearances by a strange cult-like nine-piece singing group "The New Mainstreet Singers," in which the members we are introduced to all have a creepy and surreal back stories, and The Folksmen, a pretty straight-forward and typical folk-group that had hits with novelty songs featurings jokes and sing-a-longs. The Folksmen, played by the three main members of Spinal Tap, have some great lines, but their function in the movie seems to be the providers of the only coherent history and context of the surreal folk-world that exists in this movie.
An amazing amount of prepraration that went into this project -- the movie has "cover art" from all three bands and some of the actors had to learn how to play and sing well enough to get onstage. The DVD also has a public-television-like concert of the performances of the three groups --- with all the actors singing and playing live like real rock stars. The songs are appropriately silly send-ups of different aspects of folk music (which is something I actually don't care for).
I've never seen "Spinal Tap" from beginning to end, but what I've seen, while funny, seems often like improv actors trying to get their lines in. (I might change my mind if I ever see the whole thing straight through.) In "A MIghty Wind," the lines were also improvised, but the Mitch and Mickie plot turns out to be so well formed with a satisfying conclusion that is unexpected but perfect.
Date: 2/25/07, DVD
Labels: M
